What’s the difference between a muffin and a cupcake? Cupcakes have butter and sugar creamed to make them fluffy; they are 100% sweet and are really a miniature cake, which usually have a frosting.
Muffins are beaten briefly, have a harder texture and can be sweet or savory.
Here are some recipes from my files, great for any morning.
Gluten-Free Pumpkin Muffins
12 muffins
This is a Food & Wine recipe from Abby Hocking, a New Jersey-based freelance food photographer, formerly with Food & Wine magazine, answering a special request for gluten-free.
- 1 ⅓ cups gluten-free all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ t. cinnamon
- 1 ¼ t. baking soda
- ¾ t. pumpkin pie spice*
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- 1 stick melted unsalted butter
- 2 large eggs
- 2 T. milk
- 1 t. finely grated orange zest
- ⅔ cup golden raisins (optional)
Streusel
- 3 T. light brown sugar
- 3 T. gluten-free all-purpose flour
- 3 T. gluten-free old-fashioned oats
- 3 T. pumpkin seeds (optional)
- ¼ t. cinnamon
- ¼ t. pumpkin pie spice*
- 2 T. melted unsalted butter
1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line 120cup muffin pan with paper or foil liners.
2. In a mixing bowl, whisk flour, cinnamon, baking soda and pumpkin pie spice.
3. In another bowl, whisk pumpkin puree with brown sugar, butter, eggs, milk and orange zest until smooth.
4. Add dry ingredients and whisk until batter is moistened. Fold in raisins. Let batter stand for 1 hour.
5. In a bowl, whisk streusel ingredients brown sugar, flour, oats, pumpkin seeds, cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice. Drizzle in melted butter and stir until clumps form. Let stand 30 minutes.
6. Scoop batter into muffin cups, sprinkle streusel on top. Bake in a preheated 350 F. oven 35 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Let cool on a rack.
*Pumpkin pie spice
This is from “This for That,” a 1981 cookbook that reprinted it in a newspaper.
- 2 T. pumpkin pie spice = 1 t. cinnamon
- ½ t. ginger
- ¼ t. cloves
- ¼ t. nutmeg
Microwave Blueberry Muffins
12 muffins
Great last-minute idea from Great American Recipes bakery card!
- 1 ¾ cups flour
- ⅓ cup sugar
- 2 ½ t. baking powder
- 1 cup blueberries
- ¾ cup milk
- 1 egg
- 1/3 cup melted butter or margarine
1. Line microwave baking or cupcake pan with paper-lined holders.
2. In a bowl, combine flour, sugar, and baking powder, Add blueberries.
3. Add milk, melted butter and egg. Mix until dry ingredients are just moistened.
4. Spoon batter into cupcake pan; don’t fill more than 2/3 up. Microwave at medium high 3 minutes. Let rest 3 minutes.
5. Microwave at high power 2-3 minutes. They will still be a little soft in the center. Let them rest a couple of minutes, then serve.
Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, author, compiler/contributor/editor of nine kosher cookbooks (working on a 10th) and food writer for North American Jewish publications. She lives in Jerusalem, where she has led weekly walks of the Jewish food market, Machaneh Yehudah, in English since 2009. She wrote the kosher Jerusalem restaurant features for Janglo.net, the oldest, largest website for English speakers from 2014 to 2020.
